Ian Welsh points out in this insightful, must-read post that Europe reacted just as Osama bin Laden knew they would to his peace offer. Welsh writes that OBL was speaking to the Muslim world, not Europe, when he made his offer:As everyone has probably heard by now,...
Marines in Fallujah are reported to be holding 200 Iraqis in detention for refusing to take part in the assault on Fallujah. These Iraqis are described as members of the 36th Battalion of the ICDC. The 36th Battalion is an interesting unit, supposedly made up of...
No, not Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or Bremer. But, hey, it's a start. In keeping with the Bush administration policy of never admitting they are ever wrong about anything, they haven't actually announced the fall from grace of one Khidir Hamza, the Iraqi who so obligingly...
Who Owns the Gaza Settlements? I was reading this article about what will happen to the houses, farms, and shops the Gaza settlers will leave behind when they are evacuated by the Israeli state and I realized I couldn't quite sort out what the libertarian answer was...
How to boost troop morale, Rumsfeld style: "Because we're in the midst of a major troop rotation, we have a planned increase in the number of U.S. troops," Rumsfeld said at a hastily arranged Pentagon press conference. The first casualties of what Rumsfeld called...
Lest we be accused of ignoring the good news coming out of Iraq, lets all celebrate this latest triumph of the incompetents running Operation Poorly Planned Occupation. Radioactive Scrap From Iraq Shows Up in EuropeIraq's nuclear facilities remain unguarded, and...
There's an enormous outpouring of shock and outrage on the net today over the Bush-Sharon meeting yesterday, in which it was decided that Sharon was entitled to whatever land in the West Bank he wanted in exchange for whatever other Palestinian land the Israelis are...
Iraq should dissolve the U.S.-picked Governing Council and set up a caretaker government of respected Iraqis to lead the country from the U.S. handover of power on June 30 until elections set for Jan. 31, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday. The caretaker...
A Busy Person's Guide to the Bush Press Conference Since most people don't like to watch an hour of Bush on television (and for some reason I don't mind even though it drives me nuts), I decided to boil down the questions and answers from tonight's press conference in...
Here's an excerpt from Rahul Mahajan's Empire notes. For those who still hope the Americans in Iraq will ever learn anything about Iraqi culture this will be a sad disappointment, but for those of us who never harbored such unrealistic expectations it will come as...
